Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates generally to control of autonomous vehicles and, more particularly, to systems and methods for cooperative autonomous driving for traffic congestion avoidance through vehicle-to-vehicle communications.
Description of the Related Art
Autonomous vehicles have been demonstrated and are beginning to be used in real world driving situations. For example, recently, several advanced technology companies have tested their autonomous vehicles on roads with real traffic. The developing technologies for autonomous vehicles may enable widespread use of autonomous vehicles on public roads in the near future. The intelligence used in autonomous vehicles may increase both road safety and fuel efficiency. For example, autonomous vehicles can detect surrounding conditions and can make early and wise decisions when taking actions to avoid traffic accidents. Furthermore, the fuel consumption of each autonomous vehicle can be reduced, as compared to vehicles being driven by a human driver, by tuning and optimizing the acceleration and deceleration profiles of the autonomous vehicles.
Meanwhile, traffic congestion, which leads to extra fuel costs and travel time, remains a challenging issue for autonomous vehicles. Some semi-autonomous vehicles today are equipped with features such as traffic jam assistance, which helps relieve some stress of human drivers when stuck in a traffic jam. Vehicles with more advanced autonomy can help reduce traffic congestion by allowing them travel closer together while operating at higher speeds. Existing autonomous vehicles rely on local intelligence to resolve certain types of traffic congestion conditions without cooperating with other vehicles. However, there are certain traffic congestion conditions that cannot be resolved by individual vehicles. For example, when autonomous vehicles are traveling at different speeds, if several vehicles are driving at similar lower speeds and are occupying all lanes, it may be impossible, or take a long time, for higher speed vehicles approaching from behind to overtake them, causing unnecessary traffic congestion.
Vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication technologies, such as Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC), are beginning to be deployed in the automotive domain. Through V2V communication technology, autonomous vehicles can exchange various types of messages with their neighbors. To improve traffic flow, several driving strategies using vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication technology have been proposed for Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). For example, a generalized model from which to derive lane-changing rules has been proposed. Other proposed solutions include a “polite” lane change maneuver, a predictive control vehicle driving system, a cooperative vehicular system based on V2V communication technology to accurately detect and characterize traffic congestion conditions under different traffic scenarios, and a coordinated merge control system based on V2V communication technologies.